The Shuttlecraft Galileo

I also think it would be cool if the restoration team would vlog their progress for the RPF. I think it would be a very cool addition to the RPF channel, if Art feels that doing so would be reasonable and appropriate.

Tim:

Sorry, but that won't happen. Too much nonsense here. However, we want to share everything we do with the public and fans and so have set up a website here:

Galileo Restoration | Help us save the Galileo Shuttlecraft

And you can follow us on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/TheGalileoRestoration

Alec

Thought I'd share my little brush with the Galileo, as I shared in the thread in the prop forum in 2009:

Treadwell said:

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I had a quasi-brush with the Galileo, although not in "person".

Around 1986, I was president of a sci-fi club at the University of Florida, and we started planning a convention to take place on campus in (IIRC) 1987. It was to be named "GatorCon". (Not to be confused with one by that name, organized by others, that actually took place many years later.)

I don't remember how he found out about us, but a fellow called me up to offer the Galileo for display at the con. He was a photographer who lived near Jacksonville, FL, and had nurtured, as it turned out, a bit of an obsession concerning the shuttlecraft for many years. He had visited it and videotaped it back when it was still rusting away on the Paramount backlot many years before, and had more recently gone to see it and its current owner after its 1980s restoration. He didn't actually own it but was very near to acquiring it and buying a Ford Aerostar van (because it "looks like the shuttle") to haul it across the country.

I certainly thought it would've been awesome to have at the con, so I agreed to have him come talk to the club about it at one of our meetings. He seemed a little odd on the phone, but enthusiastic.

So he comes, and gives me 8x10s of the bird in its current condition (see below), and shows us the video he'd shot when it was still decrepit. He had edited it into the scene when Kirk approaches the Enterprise in the pod from TMP, replacing all the shots of the Enterprise with his handheld videotaped shots of the shuttle. They even kinda sorta matched, in that he circled the ship at the appropriate times, and trucked into the hatch when the pod was docking. It was all we could do to keep from laughing at the very idea of the video--here was Kirk just MARVELING at this rusted out hunk of crap--and the fact that he'd obviously put a lot of work into something so stupid. Not to mention the amateurish execution (early camcorder tech). He was even nerdier than US! But hey, at least it showed passion.

But we couldn't accept his proposal. As cool as it would've been to have the shuttle present, his terms were out of the question. I forget the specific number, but he wanted something like $5,000 for the appearance. Whatever the figure was (below five figures but several grand for sure), it was about what he was going to be paying the current owners for the thing (with the cost of a trailer for it added in, IIRC)! In effect, he wanted us to buy the shuttle for him.

Fat chance. That figure was several times more than what we'd been budgeting to pay guests with actual heartbeats. There was no way, financially nor ideologically.

He never did acquire the shuttle. As for our con, it didn't happen. Although our faculty advisor had experience with event planning, we were way over our heads and canceled it. This, however, was after I'd already notified STARLOG magazine about it, so it appeared in their con schedule column. Reportedly a couple people actually showed up looking for it.

The experience did facilitate me corresponding very briefly with Majel Barett Roddenberry, though, so that was cool.

These are 8x10s he gave me:

Strangely enough I had an experience with the same guy (it had to be, photographer from Jacksonville wanting to buy the shuttlecraft). He had an office about a mile away from where I lived and we would stop in and talk Trek when we were kids (this was in the mid 1970's). Back then he was trying to buy it for $ 3000 dollars. After you originally posted the above story I tried to find him but sadly it seems as though he passd away. He was an interesting and quirky guy for sure. I remember he had trek models all around his business office (he had the Romulan pylons upside down on his model as I remember it). The first time I ever saw the original Enterprise blueprints was at his office.

I don't believe doing a V log would be a good idea either since it usually just gets in the way of a build or restoration and most of the time it is going to be the same old thing for quite awhile of removing old rotted wood and trying to save what one can before the work on building the replacement pieces moves along and the restored bird begins to take shape.

Periodic photo updates might be nice, but that is about all I would recommend. Major photo documentation of the parts is going to need to be the order of the day to show how they fit together when the new assembly work begins. Anymore than that just opens it up for being more of a hassle than it has any right to be.